If today were April 1 and not May 2, we could dismiss as an April fool’s
joke this morning’s headline that Osama bin Laden was killed in a firefight in Pakistan and quickly buried at sea. As
it is, we must take it as more evidence that the US government has unlimited belief in the gullibility of Americans.

Think about it. What are the chances that a person allegedly suffering
from kidney disease and requiring dialysis and, in addition, afflicted with diabetes and low blood pressure, survived in mountain
hideaways for a decade? If bin Laden was able to acquire dialysis equipment and medical care that his condition required,
would not the shipment of dialysis equipment point to his location? Why did it take ten years to find him?

Consider also the claims, repeated by a triumphalist US media celebrating
bin Laden’s death, that "bin Laden used his millions to bankroll terrorist training camps in Sudan, the Philippines,
and Afghanistan, sending ‘holy warriors’ to foment revolution and fight with fundamentalist Muslim forces across
North Africa, in Chechnya, Tajikistan and Bosnia." That’s a lot of activity for mere millions to bankroll (perhaps the
US should have put him in charge of the Pentagon), but the main question is: how was bin Laden able to move his money about?
What banking system was helping him? The US government succeeds in seizing the assets of people and of entire countries, Libya
being the most recent. Why not bin Laden’s? Was he carrying around with him $100 million dollars in gold coins and sending
emissaries to distribute payments to his far-flung operations?

This morning’s headline has the odor of a staged event. The smell
reeks from the triumphalist news reports loaded with exaggerations, from celebrants waving flags and chanting "USA USA." Could
something else be going on?

No doubt President Obama is in desperate need of a victory. He committed
the fool’s error of restarting the war in Afghanistan, and now after a decade of fighting the US faces stalemate, if
not defeat. The wars of the Bush/Obama regimes have bankrupted the US, leaving huge deficits and a declining dollar in their
wake. And re-election time is approaching...